


afterlife; or, how we crawled through the dust like a pair of snakes

by fealle



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, Dissociation, Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 20:31:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4319001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fealle/pseuds/fealle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He briefly remembered his brother dragging him to the hangar, Akiteru's panicked look on his face as he tells him - "Category five. Let's go, Kei."</p>
            </blockquote>





	afterlife; or, how we crawled through the dust like a pair of snakes

**Author's Note:**

> i'm here to dump a fic into the sad and lonely bokutsuki tag ;-; 
> 
> this is a pac rim au (and a lot of liberties have been taken in the meantime, but it retains the general idea of a pac rim au) that was inspired by an rp a friend and i did. read the tags for warnings.

_to these waiting hands_  
and all of this aching skin,  
make your way to me. 

 

 

**i.**

 

There was a storm when he lost his brother. A category five Kaiju, the first of its kind - at that time - had risen from the waves as if to tear the sea apart with its massive height. It made its slow crawl to land as if trying out its fins and legs for the first time, a massive infant of a lizard fueled with some insane lust for destruction as it moved through water.

 

He briefly remembered his brother dragging him to the hangar, Akiteru's panicked look on his face as he tells him - "Category five. Let's go, Kei." He walked after him with a troubled look on his face, but neither he nor Akiteru betrayed to everyone else just how worried they had been that day. The only thing that spoke of how loudly his heart was beating through his suit: he held Akiteru's hand through the crowd, as if he were a child again and neither he nor his brother know whether or not they'd have a home to see when they return. When Miyagi fell - 

 

"Kei," Akiteru calls to him as he held his helmet in his hands for the longest time. "It's time."

 

Kei nods. His hand shakes as he lifts the helmet to his head; Akiteru's glance softens, and he moves to put on his helmet over his head. Gives him a weak smile.

 

"You know, I have to tiptoe a bit to reach your head now? You've grown so much, Kei. Mom and dad would be proud."

 

"You could always use a chair if it's too much for you."

 

"Hey now!"

 

He gives a slight punch to Kei's chest, and he smiles at him. Just like that, something eases off his lungs; he remembers to breathe. He lets go of his brother's hand, a bit more comfortable in his own skin. Whether through storm, or fire, or whirlwind; when he was in a Jaeger with his brother, everything seems a lot smaller. 

 

The Jaeger is their home. For the longest time he and Akiteru had nothing until they became pilots, drift compatible, not really surprising considering the amount of things they've shared together. Fighting was easy in a Jaeger. Crying was also easier in a Jaeger. He can die tomorrow, but he'll be home. And that was all that matters.

 

It wasn't until the Jaeger was cleaved in half by powerful claws when Kei realized the unfair distance between two people in their steel home. He was screaming when the Jaeger fell. He was still screaming when they had taken him out of the wreck, and in the evening, he had fallen into a dreadful silence as he drifted in and out of dreams, wandering between a thin line of reality in his head where he was forever staring at Akiteru's back as he boards the Jaeger, and a back which had its head ripped off from it.

 

 

**ii.**

After that, two years had passed where he had done nothing but mark the passing of time based on the number of therapy sessions he'd accumulated during the month. The government had given Kei a handsome amount of money to pay for the mess that his brain had become, but now they were down one pair of Jaeger pilots and in an age where more and more monsters seem to rise from the sea, they really couldn't afford losing what few pairs they have.

 

They'd given him two months reprieve before a request was made for Kei to find a partner, like this had been some other activity in high school where all he had to do was complete an assignment and go home. He's having nightmares. The worst of them weren't the ones where he could see, _feel_ Akiteru dying again and again - no, the worst of them were the ones where he'd return to his room and he'd find Akiteru there. Smiling. Waiting for him, like he'd always done, time and time again, until Kei realized how cruel a millisecond could be where life and death was concerned.

 

In the weeks that followed, he had cut himself off from everyone he knew, including a panicked Yamaguchi who'd been his friend far long than he can remember, if only because he remembered how much of his brother was part and parcel of his memory with his best friend as well. Waking up and dreaming were the same with him, a side effect of having been in the drift when his brother died, apparently, but now it's become more and more difficult to discern which aspect of his grief should be acknowledged and which one was the kind that he nurtured when he missed him. He smokes more often. There were evenings where all he'd done was to stare listlessly on the opposite wall and smoke, watching but not really seeing the clock tick the hours by as he contemplated his lack of purpose.

 

There were times where he'd hear his voice.

 

He grits his teeth as he angrily snuffs the cigarette out on his tray, guilty of the knowledge that he'd rather be alone than confirm to everyone else that he's not at all there anymore.

 

 

+++

 

 

He never thought of killing himself, at least.

 

\- or. He thought of it before. Entertained the idea of sliding a blade right through his pulse crosswise, ripping vein and skin as he patiently pulled them out with the tip like the way you'd gut fish -

 

but the effort concentrated with killing himself, and the knowledge that somewhere, _somehow_ , more children like him would lose their brothers still, kept him from picking up a knife.

 

So maybe there was something good about grief, after all.

 

 

+++

 

 

Months and months after his forced isolation, he switched on the tv to find that a new pair had taken his place, their place, out in the sea. The cats were a pair of childhood friends, as well, one from Nekoma high school in Tokyo, and Kei watched their exploits in the news, fascinated - nostalgic - about picking up a helmet again and entering the steel maw of their dreams like he's coming home.

 

One of their pilot was a guy with messy hair whom the smaller one seemed to be hiding behind as they addressed the news, and Kei looked at the pudding-head pilot sympathetically. He had never been good with the media. it's always Akiteru who addressed them, who was always so charming and level-headed whenever he spoke - 

 

Kuroo Tetsurou spoke with conviction on the camera as he said, "We're here because we don't want anyone else to lose hope. We know what it's like to be afraid and to want to fight, too - for your friends, for your family, for the world. That's why we're gonna keep fighting. Things are hard right now, but - it's not a bad idea to play hero for anyone who needs it the most. Especially to those who've lost a whole lot of things."

 

The newscaster goes on to talk about how Kuroo Tetsurou and his partner became pilots, pudding-head Kozume Kenma. They're childhood friends. Went to the same school. Was in Tokyo when the first of the attacks had started, and - Kei turns the tv off, lays down on the couch with something awful rising in his chest and constricting his lungs, berating himself for being jealous of a man he'd never known if only because he saw that his family was still alive.

 

His fingers clench into a fist on the leather. He will not cry. He has no more room for tears. But it's awful how they come to him anyway, unwanted, without his permission, and he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

 

He picks up his cel phone and dials HQ: "Hi, this is Tsukishima Kei. Yes, _that_ Tsukishima Kei. Can I speak to --? I'd like to be put back on the active list ...."

 

 

**iii.**

He had pitched the idea to Yamaguchi after, but he never had the chance to talk to him about being a pilot earlier than he wanted to because Yamaguchi had punched his face as soon as he'd seen him in the cafe.

 

"You idiot! I called you for weeks, _months_ -!"

 

Kei winced as he picks himself from the ground, rubbing his cheek. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. And then adds, as if it explains anything: "I went to therapy, if that makes you feel better."

 

"Tsukki, that's the kind of thing that you should've been doing anyway, even before your - your brother died," Yamaguchi says, his voice softening as he stumbles over the words. Kei says nothing, seats himself across him on the table. The waitress approaches them tentatively, and then, hesitating, decides to leave them alone for a while to settle things. "I remember Akiteru asking you to go, but you never did."

 

"I had him," Kei replies simply. 

 

"Yeah, you did." Yamaguchi sighs. And because he can't really be bothered to remain angry at him, he sits down. They're quiet for a while, Yamaguchi sniffling and Kei rubbing the side of his face. He's well aware that he sort of looks like shit. He's lanky and he smells like cigarettes and he's wearing a jacket that used to fit him just right but is now a bit bigger than he is and a shirt that was most definitely not his own. Yamaguchi doesn't comment on that anymore. "I was just .... Really worried."

 

"It's fine. I've .... I wasn't thinking properly for a while." he orders a coffee. Yamaguchi orders water, no ice. Kei's fingers are pressed together tightly over his lap, a nervous habit he's never really gotten rid of, watching the steam rise from his cup like it's the most interesting thing. "I was having problems with .... reality." at Yamaguchi's confused face, he adds, "Side-effect of the drift."

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"I said it's fine."

 

Yamaguchi drinks from his glass before asking, quietly, "How was the funeral?"

 

The funeral. Kei's face betrays none of his confusion at these words, a confusion that arose mostly because - he doesn't remember the funeral. He doesn't remember how he survived after he'd been released from the hospital, weeks after his brother's death; he had functioned with the fervor of a man who had consigned himself to his death without knowing when it will come, only that it _will._ He vaguely remembers dressing for it. He must've spoken a word or two. What was the coffin like? What was the day like? 

 

Where was it held?

 

He can't remember.

 

He leans forward on the table as he blows over the steam. "It was alright."

 

He can't remember.

 

 

+++

 

 

( It wasn't alright. All eyes were on him as the coffin was lowered to the ground, Kei's eyes dead to the world as he keeps thinking, over and over, that only pieces of his brother were kept in the coffin because they couldn't find the rest of him during the storm. He vaguely remembered not breathing. He didn't cry. He thinks that Akiteru's friends cried a lot more than he did, but he didn't; he stood on the head of his brother's grave and tried to imagine what it would be like to lay in the dirt and eat it as he waited for the world to end.

 

The service was short. A few people had said their prayers, mostly through tears. A few people came over to grip his shoulder or arm painfully, well aware that he was never one for physical affection or intimacy; strange that only now did people manage to remember that when back when Akiteru had been alive they were less conscious of his wishes to be left alone. But now they remembered, and the knowledge grates in his mind, burns through his soul whenever someone touches him in sympathy, _I'm sorry,_ this man woman child person whispered through the violent haze of his mind who kept nothing in view but his brother's death and the fact that he would not be coming home to anything else at this point because _home_ was a Jaeger sixty stories high that had been torn apart and set adrift to the sea, where all things come and go.

 

Everything, Kei thinks as he leaves, always returns to the sea. )

 

 

+++

 

 

He pitches the idea to Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi's concern, rightly so, boils down to - "Are you sure you're not doing this just out of revenge? That's understandable, but .... "

 

But it forces Kei to be reckless, even though he had been doing nothing but live his life in carefully controlled gestures, because the urge to be violent, to destroy, was too strong in the wake of his brother's disappearance. He's drumming his fingers on the surface of the table when he responds, "Well. You could say that. But the government also needs more capable pilots out on the field, and it's not a bad idea to help the cats while we're facing stronger and stronger monsters."

 

That seems to satisfy Yamaguchi, for now, but he has his doubts. Mostly that he's not trained ("You'll have to go through a series of physical tests; they're grueling, but not impossible" Kei tells him), that he's not really the military type ("The Jaeger program doesn't function like a military project, even if it has its own chain of command"), what if he fucks up during a test run? ("That's why you have me.")

 

(Kei vaguely realizes that he's repeating words that he'd heard from another time, another place, but it seems to help - )

 

"I can't really stop you from this, huh?"

 

Kei bites his lower lip. 

 

"I want to get back there," he murmurs. "I tried living in this apartment they lent me out but for the most part all I've been doing is stare at walls and pretend I'm no longer human."

 

"Tsukki ...."

 

"I don't want to wait for the end of the world in a concrete box. if you refuse, I'll find someone else. They've got lists for this very reason, I'll go through every single one of them if I have to."

 

"With your personality?"

 

For the first time in a very long while, he cracks a smile. His muscles feel awkward in doing it. "Hey now."

 

"I guess I should do it. Who knows what kind of hell you'd put another newbie pilot if you randomly got partnered with them." Yamaguchi smiles. "It's so good to see you, though. Don't - don't run away again."

 

Kei nods.

 

"To be honest with you, I'm kind of really tired of hiding."

 

 

**iv.**

The first time they had done a test run together, after a few months of training and going through paperwork and a whole bunch of evaluations, they couldn't sync at all.

 

It wasn't Yamaguchi's fault. The problem was that Kei still had strong feelings about metal homes and brothers and had dragged him right through the rabbit's hole, had drowned Yamaguchi with a kind of grief that sank right through his bones and strained their neural link together. it took a while to get him out, his face betraying his own worries as he was lead to medical for a round of check ups, Kei leaning against the wall with closed eyes as he tries to breathe normally again. 

 

He had not known what kind of effect his own sorrows would have on someone else. Akiteru was an experience he and Yamaguchi had shared, so to put him through that ordeal - 

 

"It felt horrible," Yamaguchi tells him later, whispering in the clinic as his fingers clench around the thin, white blanket, crying. "I thought my heart was going to burst. I thought my limbs were going to be ripped out of me .... How can you stand this?" And then, in horror - "Was it always like this for you?"

 

Kei nods, just once, before leaning back on his chair with a sigh.

 

"It's been like that for a while."

 

"Tsukki - "

 

"Listen. You don't - you don't have to go through this again if it's too much." he grits his teeth. "I don't want you to get hurt, either."

 

But Yamaguchi only shook his head. "You're a dumbass. I'm not letting you do this alone." He wipes his tears with the blanket. "Weren't you the one who said it's gonna be alright? it's gonna be alright. I won't leave you alone anymore - not even for this."

 

Kei smiles.

 

It takes them once, twice, three more times, until finally they get it right, their neural link stabilized, and in the maw of a Jaeger Kei remembers how to breathe again.

 

Within three months they were fighting with the cats. It was feeling awfully similar to having a home again, sharing victories with friends. He got to know Kuroo. The boy was older than he was, and took him and Yamaguchi as his students; when they weren't out in the field, he tutored both of them, organized a schedule for them for working out (and laughed at Kei's pathetic attempts to lift weights), came up with maneuvers that they can use together in the sea. He played video games with Kenma, a quiet boy who was more than content to sit with him and just play and exchange games whenever they can. 

 

This is family, Kei thinks. He spends his afternoons with both Kenma and Kuroo off the sea, doing nothing but playing, Kuroo berating his smoking habits like an unwanted uncle, and Kenma patiently trying to explain to Yamaguchi one of the games he's re-playing. The cigarette burns in between his fingers as they walk over the beach, and then Kuroo leans close to him - "Hey. I heard about - you and your brother. Sorry about that."

 

He had come to a point where he could easily forgive people for their sympathy, or their pity. "It's fine."

 

Kuroo rubs the back of his neck with a hand, suddenly thoughtful. "I can't imagine that kind of thing happening to me or to Kenma. it'd probably destroy me." he says this with a slight laugh, but he's absolutely serious, he's got that look in his face that reminded Kei of that time he first saw him on tv, that look of vulnerability, but absolute conviction. That's Kuroo, he thinks. Kuroo who looked out for everyone because he was well aware that this moment was all he had and he didn't want to risk overlooking someone who needed to be taken care of, because he's that determined to make this world a whole lot less fucked up than it'd been when he woke up. "But it's the kind of thing we're all worried about, either way. We all know we're going to die, somehow. We just don't know whether it's gonna be in a Jaeger or out of it."

 

He takes a drag from his cigarette, and replies, "If you ask me, both are equally cruel." he stubs the cigarette underneath a heel; Kuroo watches him keenly.

 

"But being in a Jaeger beats being alone in the ground, so no matter how painful it is, you might as well just go and fight."

 

Kuroo laughs. "Hey. You're not bad, Tsukki."

 

And he just smiles.

 

 

+++

 

 

"You're doing a lot more of that," Kenma says without looking from his game as they were eating lunch. Kei raises an eyebrow. 

 

"A lot more of what?"

 

"Smiling."

 

"Oh." he feels his ears color; Kenma smiles as he pushes a strand behind his ear. 

 

"You were kind of scary, before." he sets down his video game, awkwardly, if only because it's a lot more polite to talk to someone seriously without playing his game even if he feels ridiculous trying to look them in the eye, but Kuroo told him he should try interacting with people more, so he tries. For Kei's part he's more used to Kenma's silences considering he's about as quiet as he was, and he enjoys his silence as much as he enjoys Kenma talking, as well. "I was telling Kuroo back then .... I thought you guys weren't gonna make it. You were terrifying and Yamaguchi looked like you just kidnapped him here."

 

"Well. Minus the kidnapping part, it wouldn't be inaccurate ...."

 

Kenma pushes the vegetables aside from his plate.

 

"I think you're doing better now. I think .... it's nice that you're talking and smiling more."

 

"... Thanks."

 

"You had us worried," Kenma says awkwardly as he eats bits and pieces of his lunch. "Kuroo used to say that he had no doubts you'd pull through if you were asked to during an assignment, he just wasn't sure if there'd be anything left of you after.

 

... But you talk more, and you smile more. And ... Yamaguchi helped, I think." his fingers clench into fists, small and determined to talk no matter how difficult and anxious he feels, and then Kei remembers that out the two of them Kenma was the brain, equally vicious as Kuroo where it comes to protecting those whom he cares about. "But - what I wanted to say is - I'm happy for you."

 

He can't really say anything to that. There's a sudden rush of - gratitude in him that prevents him from talking, otherwise he'll cry, and he hasn't done that for a very long, _long_ time. So he just nods. He takes the vegetables Kenma had been leaving out of his plate and eats them; and Kenma, gratified, decides to sit beside him as they resumed talk of something a bit less heavy, games and this officer Yamaguchi's interested in and the recent string of girls and guys that have rejected Kuroo's shitty ways of flirting with mackerel puns.

 

 

+++

 

 

It's three in the morning when Yamaguchi wakes him up with a yell.

 

"Tsukki - we have to go," he says urgently. "Kuroo just called us up - category five." he grips the rails of their bed, as if silently berating himself for having to deliver this message to his friend, knowing his history.

 

He rubs the sleep from his eyes. He thinks about what Yamaguchi had just said, and then wordlessly washes his face, brushes his teeth. Picks up his shirt from the table, puts on his pants. The mechanical simplicity in which he was moving in frightens Yamaguchi, and he asks - "Are you alright ....?"

 

"I'm fine," Kei said. He may have been smiling. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this."

 

 

+++

 

 

Almost a year since his brother's death and he had waited for the rise of the category five that had taken him out. In between that, he and Yamaguchi had served as defensive backup to the cats' offensive power, taking out category threes and fours alongside them as he waited, patiently, for that big one - that one category he couldn't defeat, his personal burden in which all of his rage hangs on. Any category five would do, any of that class of monsters that had cleaved his soul in half that fateful day he had been removed from the steel maw of a Jaeger screaming like a child. His hands were shaking out of fear, yes, but also of carefully contained excitement, a need to rip out jaws and throats and sink blades into hearts and destroy monsters, destroy desolation, destroy the months and weeks of his memory he can't return to and the hours he'd spent staring listlessly at walls as his world fell apart. 

 

Kuroo was waiting for them with their helmets as he briefs them quickly, and then his keen eyes glance at Kei's own, staring at him unflinchingly. And then he smiles.

 

"I'm this close to pissing myself, to be honest, but I'm not too worried. You got our backs, we got yours." he walks towards the hangar where Kenma was waiting, both of them falling back behind him like it was the most natural thing in the world. "After this, we'll have barbecue! I made Sawamura promise me."

 

"You shouldn't be using government funding for barbecue," Kei says, while Yamaguchi just laughs. Kuroo shrugs.

 

"Whatever, man. They'd better be lucky I didn't ask for a date with a hot actress ...."

 

"That's called a miracle, kuro." Kenma pipes up as he stays beside them. "Not even the government's that powerful."

 

"Hey!"

 

This is family, Kei thinks to himself. He smiles until his face hurts as he puts his helmet right onto his head. And it's the only thing I have. He almost feels sorry for anything that tries to cross them today - 

 

as it turns out, there were two category fives.

 

 

**v.**

Losing someone in a Jaeger turns out to be just as horrible as it had been the first time, and though he did not scream, Kei was laughing as Kuroo and Kenma pulled him out of the wreckage, Kuroo jumping out of the damn Jaeger despite requests from the marshall not to in order to meet him on the palm of their Jaeger, gripping his shoulder. By the time Kuroo had pulled him into the cockpit with them he had fallen into a defeated silence, again, quietly entering that state of dreaming and not-dreaming, not knowing what was real and what's real as they made their retreat. Wondering why he'd died, wondering whether he'd done enough.

 

The whole death weighed heavily on Kuroo; they had treated him as their leader and somehow he felt like he'd failed them, a thing that Kenma, in his exasperation, had almost raised his voice in order to tell him to stop blaming himself, stop thinking that it's your fault. They had done what they could. it's unavoidable that someone died, it's horrible, but - 

 

Kei falls on their way to medical, passes out of exhaustion and something else; a sorrow that grows into something as poisonous as a viper that had grown into its adulthood in his mind, choking his heart, paralyzing his brain. Kuroo grits his teeth as he lifts his arm over his own and Kenma helps pull him with his hands around his waist. He wants to cry. People are dying. Their Jaeger had been cleaved in half and he had just watched the wiring of their Jaeger latch onto his body and tighten and as the monster pulled - 

 

Kenma's not actually sure if he was crying when he whispers, "Don't you ever think this was your fault, not for a second," angrily to Kuroo who was pale as death and was also wishing he would silently collapse on the ground as well, but people are relying on him and he can't fail them and so he moves, despite the heavy burden of guilt and death he moves, left foot right foot again and again and again; Kenma beside himself as he says, "We had done what we could. We didn't expect them to be smarter. At least we've still got us. We're not dead. That's more than any of us can ask for. I'm terrified, Kuro, but we're still alive. Tsukishima - "

 

 

+++

 

 

Back to square one.

 

 

+++

 

 

He'd refused the therapy that was offered to him. He had cut ties from everyone else. He still receives letters and texts from Kenma and Kuroo both, but he had retreated back into his old apartment where the walls were a solid white and he can see faces, now Akiteru's, now Yamaguchi's; time and time again he hears their voice as he smokes and watches the minutes pass by and Kei thinks that he's _sick of this town_ , he's done trying to live in this place by himself, it's exhausting to be alive.

 

One month turns into two turns into almost three years and if anyone asks him what he'd done the past couple of years he wouldn't have been able to answer them. That was grief, he thinks. Grief was a constant company, a quiet room of something stronger than steel or concrete where he nurtured his misery in its dark corners, letting the smoke permeate his memories and his reality. The second funeral he'd attended where he'd wished again and again that he was in the ground instead, and still the reality was the opposite, the most difficult task he'd ever had to deal with. 

 

He doesn't remember the funeral. He barely remembers people's faces. He barely remembers what he did at all.

 

Maybe people visited. Sometimes Kenma comes with groceries and a few of the things he used to like before, candies and shortcakes and even some macarons, asking him to _please eat more_ , and Kei just nods. Sometimes Kuroo interrupted the stream of voices and faces in his room when he comes, something like pity and disappointment and anger visible in his eyes when he walks towards him and tells him - 

 

\- tells him - 

 

 

+++

 

 

And then, that summer, almost halfway through his third year of isolation, someone else came.

 

There's a quick rapping on his door and Kei nearly falls off the couch as he murmurs, "Dammit, Kuroo, I'm up," because who else could it be? 

 

But it wasn't Kuroo.

 

It was some guy with horribly messy, white and grey hair, and an easy grin on his face. "Hey! sorry for interrupting. You're Tsukishima Kei, right? I'm - "

 

"I don't like salesmen," he grumbles, and was about to close the door on his face but the guy was too quick, he manages to get a foot in and a hand and then all of a sudden Kei was trying to force this human mass out of his door. "I said - "

 

"I know what you said, but I'm not a salesman! Please don't shove me out!"

 

"I don't care," Kei nearly yells. His throat hurts from not having used it too often and from smoking too much that talking to this guy was taking twice the amount of effort he's willing to spend. "Leave me alone - "

 

"I'm Bokuto Koutaro, and I'm a Jaeger pilot!"

 

He stops.

 

His hands were shaking on the doorknob. Bokuto stops fighting the door, and he carefully inches his body through the door to look at him. Kei had his forehead pressed against the door, eyes shut tight in exhaustion.

 

He almost whispers against the door when he tells him, "please go."

 

".... I need to talk to you first."

 

A crazed laugh breaks out of him. He feels something coiling in his brains, ready to strike; his voice is laced with poison as he whispers, "How kind of you. Did Kuroo send you to do this? Or did the marshal ask you to pick me up, ask me if I still want to die in Jaeger as I've tried before? I have news for you, Bokuto Kotarou. My mind is a hornet's nest. If you touch me you will burn. I'm not terrified anymore."

 

"Kuroo doesn't know I'm here. He actually told me not to bother you, and he's probably going to gut me if he finds out I'm here." 

 

There's no point in struggling at the door anymore, so Kei leaves it open; Bokuto lets himself in, shuts the door quietly. He raises the blinds to let more light in his decrepit apartment. He had kept it at a level of clean, but he can't deny the amount of dust and spider webs everywhere. if Bokuto had noticed it, he didn't say anything. Kei grabs a pack from the table and lights up a cigarette, or at least tries to, his hands shaking and dropping the lighter instead. Frustration pierces the wave of desperation and loneliness he's been so used to shrouding himself into for the past couple of years, and he snarls, "Fucking - "

 

and Bokuto moves, picks the lighter up from the floor. Strikes it. Lights his cigarette for him.

 

"Let's talk," he says simply.

 

Kei's not proud of how his voice shakes when he tells him, "I'm not the best person to be with, right now."

 

"That's fine," Bokuto says, quietly. He sets aside the lighter on the table, and then leans against the edge. it's only then that he realizes how dark it's been in this apartment. The sunlight moved through the window and bathed everything in a soft light, and Bokuto was just - there, solid and real and around him the voices and faces were muted and quiet in the emptiness of these four walls he'd confined himself in. He nearly misses his words when he tells him, "You don't have to be the best anything."

 

He waits for him to add something to that, some pithy equivalent signifying sympathy, but he doesn't; Bokuto just waits for him, and Kei fills the silence by smoking, taking a few drags until his nerves have settled and he can command his voice to a tone that's more or less calm or acceptable enough for him to ask questions. "Why are you here?"

 

"Well. You already know what I am. You can guess what kind of offer I'm here to make."

 

"Two deaths," he says to him, looking him in the eyes unflinchingly. "That's a lot more than most pilots, Bokuto. Most pilots would be smart enough not to try and maintain a neural link with a broken mind - "

 

"Your mind's not broken," Bokuto nearly snaps at him, annoyed; Kei is taken aback at the flash of irritation, though he senses that it's not - it's not against him. Something constricts him in his chest when he realizes it and it's making it difficult for him to talk and get angry. It's been so long since he'd talked to someone with genuine sympathy for himself. "When someone close to you dies, you _grieve_. That's normal. That doesn't mean you're broken; anyone else who insists is a turd. And as Jaeger pilots deaths affect us a lot more than most because we're connected to our partners in a way most people aren't." 

 

He sighs, running his hands through his messy hair. He can't remember meeting anyone with hair as ridiculous as he is, barring Kuroo. At least Kuroo was kind enough to spare the world from the horrors he can push his appearance to and never dyed his hair - 

 

(and even thinking about Kuroo, Kenma, Yamaguchi, Akiteru - his family - was just too much to bear - )

 

"I won't lie to you, Tsukishima. The truth is that - the world's been going to hell for a while - "

 

"- and you're here to convince me to go back? That's absurd." He flicks the ashes off his cigarette to a tray. "Are you going to try and convince me that this country is worth defending? That there's something else bigger out there than my concerns that I should worry about? That I still have people I care about that I want to fight for?" Kei smiles cruelly at him. "I've heard all of that before."

 

But Bokuto, unfazed, just gives him a grin.

 

"I know. But you haven't heard it from me."

 

_Do your worst,_ that grin told Kei. It was both a provocation and assurance, a sense of confidence he hadn't seen in a long, long time -

 

(and he thinks of the time that his brother had fitted his helmet over his head, smiling, and the way he watched his back as they ascended to the cockpit, solid and dependable and strong - )

 

"Have a seat," he tells him, finally. "Mind the mess around you. it wasn't exactly fun being cooped up in here."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tbc.

**Author's Note:**

> im gonna try and get the second (and last) chapter up asap.


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